James Whitcomb

James Whitcomb (1 December 1795-4 October 1852) was Governor of Indiana (D) from 6 December 1843 to 27 December 1848 (succeeding Samuel Bigger and preceding Paris C. Dunning) and a US Senator from 4 March 1849 to 4 October 1852 (succeeding Edward A. Hannegan and preceding Charles W. Cathcart).

Biography
James Whitcomb was born in Rochester, Windsor County, Vermont in 1795, and his family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1806. In 1819, Whitcomb moved to Fayette County, Kentucky to become a lawyer, which he did in 1822, and he moved to Bloomington, Indiana two years later. He served in the state legislature before being elected Governor of Indiana in 1843, serving until 1848, when he was elected to the US Senate. As governor during the Mexican-American War, he raised levies to fight against Mexico, and he instituted a law to prevent the government from taking loans from an already crisis-stricken Indiana. He died of kidney disease in 1852.